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1985 Northern Ireland Local Elections
Elections for local government were held in Northern Ireland on 15 May 1985, contesting 565 seats in all. Background 1981 elections The previous elections had been fought in the middle of the hunger strike and the H-Block Prison Protest. Those elections had shown changes in party representation, with three parties, namely the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), winning 75% of the seats. On the Unionist side, the DUP arrived at a position of near parity with the UUP, outpolling the latter by 851 votes, although the UUP managed to win more seats overall. Other changes on the Unionist side saw the disbandment of two smaller Unionist parties: the Unionist Party of Northern Ireland in September 1981 and the United Ulster Unionist Party in May 1984. On the nationalist side, while the SDLP maintained its dominant position, a greater number of elected candidates supporting the H-Block protest were elected ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Molyneaux, Baron Molyneaux Of Killead
James Henry Molyneaux, Baron Molyneaux of Killead, Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, KBE, Privy Council of the United Kingdom, PC (27 August 1920 – 9 March 2015), often known as Jim Molyneaux, was a Unionism in Ireland, unionist politician from Northern Ireland who served as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) from 1979 to 1995, and as the Member of Parliament (UK), Member of Parliament (MP) for South Antrim (UK Parliament constituency), South Antrim from 1970 to 1983, and later Lagan Valley (UK Parliament constituency), Lagan Valley from 1983 to 1997. An Orange Order, Orangeman, he was also Sovereign Grand Master of the Royal Black Institution from 1971 to 1995, and a leading member of the Conservative Monday Club. Early life Born in Killead, a small village in County Antrim, to Sarah (née Gilmore) and William Molyneaux, James Molyneaux was educated at a nearby school in Aldergrove, County Antrim, Aldergrove. Although he was a member of the Church of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unionist Party Of Northern Ireland
The Unionist Party of Northern Ireland was a political party founded by Brian Faulkner in September 1974. Formation The party emerged following splits in the Ulster Unionist Party in 1973 and 1974 over the British government's white paper ''Northern Ireland Constitutional Proposals'', the 1973 Northern Ireland Assembly election, and the Sunningdale Agreement. Faulkner had led the majority of the UUP into a power-sharing coalition but in January 1974 he was deposed as leader as the anti-Sunningdale faction of the party won control. In the February 1974 general election a number of Faulkner's followers (including several sitting MPs) stood as Pro-Assembly Unionists against a coalition of the Ulster Unionist Party, the Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party and the Democratic Unionist Party. They failed to win a single seat at Westminster, and this defeat contributed to the downfall of the power-sharing Executive established by Sunningdale. However they remained active and in Septembe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Douglas Hurd
Douglas Richard Hurd, Baron Hurd of Westwell, (born 8 March 1930) is a British Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party politician who served in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major from 1979 to 1995. A career diplomat and political secretary to Prime Minister Edward Heath, Hurd first entered Parliament in February 1974 United Kingdom general election, February 1974 as MP for the Mid Oxfordshire constituency (Witney (UK Parliament constituency), Witney from 1983). His first government post was as Minister for Europe from 1979 to 1983 (being that office's inaugural holder) and he served in several Cabinet roles from 1984 onwards, including Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1984–85), Home Secretary (1985–89) and Foreign Secretary (United Kingdom), Foreign Secretary (1989–95). He stood unsuccessfully for the 1990 Conservative Party leadership election, Conservative Party leadership in 1990, and retired from frontline politics during a Cabinet resh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belfast City Council
Belfast City Council () is the Local government in Northern Ireland, local authority with responsibility for part of Belfast, the largest city of Northern Ireland. The council serves an estimated population of (), the largest of any district council in Northern Ireland, while being the smallest by area. Belfast City Council is the primary council of the Belfast Metropolitan Area, a grouping of six former district councils with commuter towns and overspill from Belfast, containing a total population of 579,276. The council is made up of 60 Councillors#UnitedKingdom, councillors, elected from ten district electoral areas. It holds its meetings in the historic Belfast City Hall. The current Lord Mayor of Belfast, Lord Mayor is Micky Murray of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland. As part of the Reform of local government in Northern Ireland, 2014/2015 reform of local government in Northern Ireland the city council area expanded, and now covers an area that includes 53,000 addit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alex Maskey
Alex Maskey (born 8 January 1952) is an Irish former politician who served as Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly from 2020 to 2024 and was the first member of Sinn Féin to serve as Lord Mayor of Belfast from 2002 to 2003. He was Sinn Féin's longest sitting councillor, representing the Laganbank electoral area of Belfast. He was also an MLA for Belfast West for two periods, and also for Belfast South. He reportedly retired "from frontline politics" in early 2024. Early life Maskey was educated at St Malachy's College and at the Belfast Institute for Further and Higher Education and then worked in Belfast docks as a labourer and barman. He was a successful amateur boxer, having only lost 4 out of 75 fights. After the Troubles began in the late 1960s he became involved with the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and was interned twice in the 1970s. Political career Maskey stood unsuccessfully in West Belfast in the 1982 Assembly Election. In June 1983, Maskey won a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin ( ; ; ) is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The History of Sinn Féin, original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith. Its members founded the revolutionary Irish Republic and its parliament, the First Dáil, and many of them were active in the Irish War of Independence, during which the party was associated with the Irish Republican Army (1919–1922). The party split before the Irish Civil War and again in its aftermath, giving rise to the two traditionally dominant parties of Irish politics: Fianna Fáil, and Cumann na nGaedheal (which merged with smaller groups to form Fine Gael). For several decades the remaining Sinn Féin organisation was small and often without parliamentary representation. It continued its association with the Irish Republican Army (1922–1969), Irish Republican Army. Another split in 1970 at the start of the Troubles led to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the List of prime ministers of the United Kingdom by length of tenure, longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century and the first woman to hold the position. As prime minister, she implemented policies that came to be known as Thatcherism. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style. Thatcher studied chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, and worked briefly as a research chemist before becoming a Barristers in England and Wales, barrister. She was List of MPs elected in the 1959 United Kingdom general election, elected Member of Parliament for Finchley (UK Parliament constituency), Finc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Ireland Forum
The New Ireland Forum was a forum in 1983–1984 at which Irish nationalist political parties discussed potential political developments that might alleviate the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The Forum was established by Garret FitzGerald, then Taoiseach, under the influence of John Hume, for "consultations on the manner in which lasting peace and stability can be achieved in a new Ireland through the democratic process". The Forum was initially dismissed, by Unionists, Sinn Féin, and others, as a nationalist talking-shop. The Forum's report, published on 2 May 1984, listed three possible alternative structures: a unitary state, a federal/confederal state, and joint British/Irish authority. The British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, dismissed the three alternatives one by one at a press conference, each time saying, "that is out", in a response that became known as the "out, out, out" speech. However, Garret Fitzgerald, who described the Forum's report as "an agenda not a bl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northern Ireland Assembly (1982)
The Northern Ireland Assembly established in 1982 represented an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to restore the devolution to Northern Ireland which had been suspended 10 years previously. The Assembly was dissolved in 1986. Origins The Assembly emerged as a result of initiatives by the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland, Humphrey Atkins and James Prior. The first step in this process was a white paper called The Government of Northern Ireland: A Working Paper for a Conference, published on 20 November 1979. This established a conference, attended the following year by the Democratic Unionist Party, the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, Alliance Party and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). (The UUP refused to become involved in protest at a decision to allow discussions on an Irish dimension, discussions which the DUP also boycotted.) Talks between the DUP, Alliance and SDLP took place between 7 January and 24 M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jim Prior
James Michael Leathes Prior, Baron Prior, (11 October 1927 – 12 December 2016) was a British Conservative Party politician. A Member of Parliament from 1959 to 1987, he represented the Suffolk constituency of Lowestoft until 1983 and then the renamed constituency of Waveney from 1983 to 1987, when he stood down from the House of Commons and was made a life peer. He served in two Conservative cabinets, and outside parliament was Chairman of the Arab British Chamber of Commerce from 1996 to 2004, and Chancellor of Anglia Ruskin University from 1992 to 1999. Under Edward Heath, Prior was Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food from 1970 to 1972, then Leader of the House of Commons until Heath lost office in the wake of the February 1974 election. His party returned to power under Margaret Thatcher in 1979, and Prior was Secretary of State for Employment from 1979 to 1981, disagreeing with some of her views on trade unions and her monetarist economic policies generally. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Secretary Of State For Northern Ireland
The secretary of state for Northern Ireland (; ), also referred to as Northern Ireland Secretary or SoSNI, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for the Northern Ireland Office. The officeholder is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. The incumbent secretary of state for Northern Ireland is Hilary Benn. The officeholder works alongside the other Northern Ireland Office ministers. The corresponding shadow minister is the shadow secretary of state for Northern Ireland. History Historically, the principal ministers for Irish (and subsequently Northern Ireland) affairs in the UK Government and its predecessors were: * the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ( 1171–1922); * the Chief Secretary for Ireland (1560–1922); and * the Home Secretary (1922–1972). In August 1969, for example, Home Secretary James Callaghan approved the sending of British Army soldiers to Northern Ireland. Scotland and Wales were represente ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alliance Party Of Northern Ireland
The Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (APNI), or simply Alliance, is a liberal and centrist political party in Northern Ireland. Following the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election, it was the third-largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly, holding seventeen seats. It broke through by achieving third place in first preference votes in the 2019 European Parliament election and polling third-highest regionally at the 2019 UK general election. The party won one of the three Northern Ireland seats in the European Parliament, and one seat, North Down, in the House of Commons, the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Founded in 1970 from the New Ulster Movement, the Alliance Party originally represented moderate and non-sectarian unionism. However, over time, particularly in the 1990s, it moved towards neutrality on the Union, and came to represent wider liberal and non-sectarian concerns. It supports the Good Friday Agreement but maintains a desir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
